Yes! We are on the New York Times, one of the most important newspapers of the world! Last 25 Dec. 2020, they published a story about two couples who called home two small vehicles during a long period of time…

Two couples have spent years on the road with about 50 square feet or less to call home. It takes wanderlust -and a serious concise kitchen plan.

New York Times. By Mercedes Lilienthal, Dec. 25, 2020

What if you went on a road trip, and never came back?

Two couples called the road their home for years, logging hundreds of thousands of adventurous miles. Their refuges? For one couple, a Mitsubishi Delica four-wheel-drive van, small when compared with an R.V. or even other vans, let alone a faddish tiny house. For another, a Ford Festiva, small compared with just about anything on four wheels.

The coronavirus pandemic has idled both couples and their vehicles, for now, as they all wait for their next chapters.

…

In the slightly bigger quarters (53.8 square feet) of their 1991 Mitsubishi Delica Star Wagen, Pablo Rey and Anna Callau have wound their way through 60 countries.

Their vehicle has a nickname, too: La Cucaracha, and it was home to the couple for 16 years. It was even the guest of honor in their Las Vegas wedding -their said their vows in a drive-through ceremony in 2011.

What started as a four-year-long jaunt, one continent per year, turned into a never-ending journey. “Life outside of our usual boundaries was far more rich and exciting,” said Mr. Rey, 54, who grew up in Buenos Aires.

The couple’s travels with the van are paused, however, and it’s parked near Reno, Nev., awaiting post-pandemic times. Mr. Rey and Ms. Callau, 48, are staying near her family’s home in Europe in the meantime.

The couple paid around $10,500 for the van on Christmas Eve in 1999 in Barcelona, Spain, with about 52,000 miles on the odometer. (They later suspected it had been illegally rolled back considerably.) They have made plenty of adjustments over the years, including an extra 20-gallon fuel tank and a solar panel.

Across their 245,000miles of journeys, they encountered challenges and breakdowns. In Sudan, “we lost the cover of the air filter and half of the sand of the Sahara Desert went into the engine,” Mr. Rey said. “We were in an area where nobody speaks English, only Arabic.”

The local mechanics fixed only tractors. The couple had no phone, no embassy and no AAA to ask for help. Still, they managed.

In Kenia, bandits with Ak-47s attemped a robbery. Mr. Rey and Ms. Callau were attacked by thieves in Trinidad and Tobago, and in Kitum Cave, Kenya, Ebola cases were being diagnosed as they travelled through. The Andes mountains in Chile posed another threat: The Delica’s engine quit at 15.000 feet and had to be replaced.

Adversity or challenges can lead to reward and happiness. “Interesting stories usually come when you go out of your comfort zone,” said Ms. Callau, who is from Barcelona and identifies as Catalan. The couple share their travels online via Viajeros4x4x4 and related social media channels.

“To live on the road is to live with much more freedom,” Ms. Callau added. The couple have worked in a bar in Chile and a ski resort as “piste” police. They printed and sold T-shirts, postcards and books they wrote about their journey to help fund their travels. They even developed a comic strip with a friend from Boston about living on the road.

One of the most rewarding parts has been being the owners/masters of our time,” Ms. Callau said. “The magic now is in the unexpected,” Mr. Rey added.

Read the full story at The New York Times! https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/24/business/car-travel-homes.html

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Pablo Rey (Buenos Aires) and Anna Callau (Barcelona), also known as #viajeros4x4x4, have been overlanding the world non stop during the last 18 years on a 4WD van. They mastered the art of solving problems (breakdowns and police harassment, between them) in far away places, while enjoying their nomadic lifestyle.

They’ve been 3 years driving through Africa, between Cairo and Cape Town; 7 years all around South America, and 6 years going to every corner of Central and North America. They crossed the Southern Atlantic Ocean in a fishing vessel, descended an Amazon river in a 6 log wooden raft, and walked with a swiss knife between elephants in wild Africa. On the last two years they started to travel by foot (Pyrenees mountains coast to coast, 2 months) and motorbike (Asia), with the smallest lugagge possible.

Pablo has written three books, many articles to magazines like Overland Journal and Lonely Planet and both are in the short list of the most respected latino overlanders.

When will the journey end? The journey does not end, the journey is life.